Event Details

In an age of instantaneous information access, endless social networking, and data deluge, what’s left of the core practices and values of the Humanities, which have privileged­, at least traditionally, ­reflective contemplation, books and reading, the search for meaning, and informed cultural critique? What happens to the Humanities when confronted with the possibilities of the digital information age, and what happens to the digital information age when confronted with the millennia-long history of the Humanities? In this talk, Todd Presner argues for the centrality of the Humanities ­in its long and complex history ­for critical digital thought and innovation. Digital Humanities opens up ways to understand the history of knowledge systems and expose structuring assumptions built into new technologies, create for ambiguity and uncertainty (not for overcoming it), situate knowledge within trans-historical and trans-cultural contexts, recognize the importance of design for multiplicity and heterogeneity, and bring certain values such as ‘participation without condition’ and responsible citizenship into the forefront of the networked age. Presner will demonstrate these concepts with reference to a series of projects in the Digital Humanities and argue for the deep link between “digital” and “humanities” as a way to thoughtfully critique new technologies and build for a more humane future.

This event is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.

Todd Presner is Chair of UCLA’s Digital Humanities program and is Professor of Germanic Languages and Comparative Literature. He is also the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Director of the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies. He is the founder and director of HyperCities, a digital mapping project, and most recently a co-author of the book, Digital_Humanities (MIT Press, 2012), with Anne Burdick, Johanna Drucker, Peter Lunenfeld, and Jeffrey Schnapp. He just completed a book called HyperCities: Thick Mapping in the Digital Humanities (Harvard UP, 2013). His current project is a called "The Ethics of the Algorithm" and examines the 50,000+ Holocaust testimonies of the Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive in order to explore how a database or information architecture can be "ethical."

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Thursday, February 21, 2013 from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM (EST)

Organizer

NYU-DH

Sponsored by the Humanities Initiative at NYU, in collaboration with NYU Libraries and the Office of Global Technology, NYU-DH is a forum for conversation in the digital humanities across departments and units of New York University. It seeks to showcase the innovative use of digital tools for teaching, research, and program development at NYU and beyond, and to foster critical and practical dialogue about their implications for disciplinary methods, classroom instruction, and course design in the humanities. Consolidating communication through its own blog, twitter channel, and list-serve, NYU-DH seeks to build community among faculty, staff, and students both on-line and off, and to develop new resources and opportunities for adapting digital technologies to scholarship, pedagogy, and professional training in the 21st -century university. To join NYU-DH’s list-serve or publicize digital humanities events and activities, please contact NYU Google Group at <nyudh-group@nyu.edu>.